


River of Life

by rsadelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-20
Updated: 2004-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna is going to Egypt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	River of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Molly for beta reading services.

Luna has been studying Arabic. Wizards usually use a spell for this kind of thing. It's easier and generally considered to be the sensible thing to do. Luna has always been different.

What she likes most about Arabic, aside from the fact that it means she'll be able to get around on her own when she gets to Egypt, and she will be going to Egypt, no matter what anyone says, is the written form. It's all loops and dots that are really quite pretty. And it goes backwards, which she likes very much.

She's taken, since the end of the war, to wearing Muggle clothes. Not just any Muggle clothes, but the kind worn by the girls she's met in the New Age shops. The Wiccans. Their theory isn't bad, not horribly so anyway, but they just don't have any power. Luna's just careful enough not to actually do anything that might make them figure it out.

She likes the clothes, and the girls. Fabric-heavy denim skirts aren't all that different from the robes taking up too much space in her closet, and necklaces look much better with Muggle blouses.

She tells the girls in her protection circle--"It's like a coven," one of them explained to her, "only coven can get you in trouble, so we call it a protection circle. It's the same thing, really"--that she's in love with a boy who did something heroic in their school days and is now working in Egypt.

"I'm going to Egypt," she says.

"Really?" One of the girls, a tall, thin one who looks rather like a dryad but with a much warmer personality, asks. "When are you going, then?"

Luna bends over the spell book and gently crushes basil over the bowl. "When the time is right," she says serenely.

"You're mad," another of them, a good solid English girl, says affectionately.

She works out the arrangements by post owl while she studies her Arabic and waits for the time to be right. The money's not a problem; people may look down on The Quibbler, but it's third behind only the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly in readership, and she's old enough, now, to have access to her trust fund.

And then, finally and a little suddenly, it's time.

"I'm leaving," she tells the protection circle. "I'm going to Egypt this week." They perform a simple holding spell, to keep her in their thoughts and them in hers, before the circle dissolves into good-bye tea and scones in the shop around the corner from the park.

"I'm going to Egypt," she tells her father when he gets home.

"Yes, of course you are, dear."

"No," she says, making him see. "I'm going day after next."

"Luna," he says, "my dear."

"I'm going, Dad. You'll be fine. I've asked Miss Parsons to look after you." Miss Parsons is her father's secretary, and Luna's favorite candidate for the role of stepmother.

"I'll miss you," he says, and that's all right. She'll miss him too.

"I'll write to you all the time," she promises, and they go out for a farewell dinner.

She's been getting ready for so long that packing takes almost no time at all, and then she just has to wait until the moment her portkey will spell her away.

She sensibly puts things away when she gets there, unpacking as easily as she packed. It's a nice flat, open, with lots of windows and a good view of the desert. She admires the view before she goes downstairs.

A tall redhead answers the door. "Yes, can I help you?"

Luna blinks at him, and then remembers that, of course, it's one of Ginny's brothers. A cursemaker or breaker or some such, and back in Egypt after a bad breakup.

"I'm here to see Harry."

The Weasley frowns down at her, but he leaves her there and eventually Harry replaces him at the front door.

"I've taken the flat upstairs," she tells him.

He looks almost as if he might cry, and she worries, just for a moment, that maybe it's not the right time. But then he steps out into the hall and puts his arms around her. He whispers her name into her hair, and it is the right time after all.


End file.
